


the only hope for me is you

by havisham



Series: havisham's SASO 2017 works collection [41]
Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Character Death, End of the World, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 15:38:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11443896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: Haru and the end of the world as he knows it.





	the only hope for me is you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thimble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimble/gifts).



> Written for SASO 2017 Bonus Round 3: Fan Soundtracks for [the prompt:](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22341.html?thread=13104709#cmt13104709) Sousuke/Haru, [The Only Hope For Me is You -My Chemical Romance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xAzqKEYaCs).

Haru didn’t understand why Rin always insisted on including Sousuke in their foraging expeditions until the day Nagisa was almost bitten. Nagisa was quicker on his feet than most of them -- on land, anyway -- and the walker had come out nowhere. And after a moment of crystallized shock, the walker’s head disappeared in a puff of red mist. Haru whirled around to see Sousuke shouldering his rifle. They exchanged cool looks of acknowledgement. Haru didn’t question the need for Sousuke to come along with them again. 

*

Try as hard as they could, they lost people, one by one. Makoto hadn’t ever been right since the rising began and he had lost both his parents and his younger siblings. He went first and it nearly killed Haru to lose him. It was only the reappearance of Rin that stopped him from following Makoto. And there was still Nagisa, Rei and Gou to take care of, after all. 

And then there was Sousuke, a shadow that always lurked behind Rin. He’d stuck to the Matsuokas shortly after the rising. From Rin Haru learned that the three of them were pretty much the only family left for each other. 

Rei was picked up by what was left of the military. They were gathering up what was left of the scientific community to find a cure for the walkers, and apparently, a particularly smart high schooler qualified. Nagisa had gone along with Rei -- it was impossible to separate them, after all. At both Rin and Sousuke's strenuous insistence, Gou had gone with them -- there was no more room for the the rest of them. 

Haru, Rin and Sousuke watched them go, each knowing that they'd done the right thing. 

Nagisa and Gou waved at them frantically, until the twist of the road swallowed them up. 

*

The blood was hardly noticeable, against the red of Rin’s hair. He was still smiling when Haru reached him, slipping on the blood as he did so, his teeth biting so hard that Haru could see the pinpricks of red on his lower lip. “Rin, Rin, don’t --” Haru babbled, “don’t leave us, please.” 

Rin’s eyes flickered over to where Sousuke was, a half a step behind Haru. “You guys are going to be okay?” 

“Yeah,” Sousuke said. 

“Damn liar!” Haru said, his voice ripped from his throat. How could they be okay now? How would anything be okay again? 

Sousuke leaned down and whispered in Haru’s ear, his breath sour. “He’s dying, you fucking twit. Just lie.” 

*

They’d taken Rin’s body and stolen a boat. The boat was because walkers turned out to to be terrible swimmers, and also -- Haru felt sure that Rin would have wanted to be buried at sea. They’d wrapped Rin’s body in the inflatable life raft and consigned him to the sea. If the boat sank now, Haru supposed that they were fucked. Sousuke seemed to know how to work the controls, so Haru stayed on deck and watched the sea. 

 

*

When the gas ran out, Haru thought that this was it. The end. Sousuke had laid out their remaining supplies -- enough food for a week. Enough water for five days. Enough bullets for two shots to the head. Haru took it all in and realized something then. Despite it all, all the losses -- Makoto, Rin, all their dreams for the future -- he still didn’t want to die. He wanted to live, as disparately as before. 

He looked up and saw Sousuke and saw the same feeling echoed in his eyes. 

*

Haru woke up on the day the water ran out to an odd stillness. He pushed Sousuke off him -- they slept curled around each other, to conserve heat on the chillier nights at sea -- and realized that the boat was no longer rocking with the waves. He shook Sousuke awake -- Sousuke leveled his glare at him, but that didn’t have the power to scare him anymore. 

“We’ve stopped,” Sousuke said, stating the obvious. 

“Maybe we’re stuck on a reef?” Haru said, hopefully. 

“Might still be in the middle of the sea, stuck on one of those garbage islands,” Sousuke warned him, but Haru was already out of the cabin. They _had_ hit a reef -- and Haru could see a dark shape of an island in the distance. It was covered with trees and had a long, white beach that he thought he could reach, if he just reached for it. 

He wanted to cry with happiness. He wanted to hug someone. And since Sousuke was the only one left, the only one who knew what Haru knew, he hugged him. Sousuke surprised him by kissing him, and Haru surprised himself by kissing him back. 

For the first time in a long time, Haru felt something like hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Read the remix of this work by dw user fickle [here](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/24968.html?thread=16080264#cmt16080264). (Damn zombies.)


End file.
